


Two Lives

by Alona



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-08 01:44:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4285863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alona/pseuds/Alona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A king and a child explore fairy magic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Lives

From his ancient throne under the earth the new king felt all the magic of his realm cast its lines out for him to gather and weave into a new order that would be clear and strong and good: an order that would endure.

He had left far behind him an England that could never have been his; a rejuvenated land surrounded him. The subjects of his new realm had long haunted the landscape of his living nightmares, but with the passing of the shadow from the land they too had taken on their true forms. They were still twisted, but they no longer had the power to terrify; they were a little ridiculous, but their welcome was sincere.

Fairies had prodigious wills; mustered against a single target their wills allied to their magic could shatter that target without difficulty – but the king knew that fairy will was a capricious thing, as subject to alteration as a sheet of newspaper in the street blown along by tortuous winds and wrapped around the rushing legs of heedless crowds. He did not worry unduly, for he was used to guiding fractious wills. No fairy could be more inert and frivolous than a maid or footman sighing over a sweetheart. He would learn in time to direct these subjects, who were in their best moods eager for direction.

In them as in the land there was potential for growth and goodness. He would foster this potential and see it bear fruit. But first there was much to be done.

Before he could begin in earnest he would have to treat with the magic of the realm. It yearned far more than its people to help, to shape itself to his desires, to work wonders – wonders had been performed already, and he marveled at them, but they had been the swift calamitous work of need. To go forward would require deliberation.

He went out to walk the wooded paths of the realm. Every gnarled tree, every wild flower, every glint of light on a hidden pool had meaning for him and spoke to him. All this magic had passed through him before, a towering wave he had controlled from instinct as he rode its crest; now he brushed each individual thread and saw its possibilities ramify before him; now instinct would be allied to care and foresight.

The magic here had in it equal potential for beauty and violence. He would not act rashly; he would not change too much at once: for any push at a pendulum widens its arc in both directions, and so would this magic react if he applied careless force. When he came to imperfect spots in the pattern, he studied before deciding and considered before acting.

The trees here grew too close together, hiding and stifling the sluggish creek trickling between them. He bargained with the magic of the trees; in time they would recede, making way for a green-gold dappling and marshy banks thick with soft-smelling reeds. It would be slow but sure. In his mind's eye he saw it complete.

This spring was poisoned, with a dread poison older even than the late king. The new king read its history in the deathly waters and crumbling banks: how his predecessor had tried to burn out the infection, to scoop it all at once from the spot where it had rooted itself; he had failed and forgotten. The poison had spread.

The king shaped from the waters a new life that would one day fill the spring with its own magic: a cleansing magic that would feed on the poison until there was none left. In his mind's eye he saw the spring renewed.

The magic of the realm spoke to him, and offered him its service. If he wished he could take the memories that pained him and shape them into new growth; the memories would gall him no longer, but would decorate and glorify his realm. He did not refuse all at once. Bitterness and misery were still heavy in him, though allayed by all the clear, good feelings he had long missed. What sort of a person would he be without his memories of evil? He did not ask himself whether he would be better or worse; that he would be less compassionate, less thoughtful – he saw. So he refused the magic, gently.

Again the magic of the realm whispered to him, bringing a different offer. If not the painful memories, then perhaps the good and sweet could be taken and transfigured: for if he held to them they would begin to fester and gnaw at him; he would sicken for want of the people and scenes of his earlier life.

He did not argue that there were no good memories, no leavening of sweetness in the life he had left behind; but he had left it of his own volition, the evil and such good as there was alike. He tried to see himself without these memories, but they had no separate existence; the small joys and delicate victories of that life were carved from the matter of its losses and wounds. The whole structure would become a blank without them. So, meditating a while, he again refused, and walked on.

Where he had stood to think a new flower grew – pale blue and violet blossoms curling like smoke, set among hidden thorns.

Everywhere he walked he traced the texture of the healing scars of past battles. The land sang around him as it broke apart the last lingering signs of violence and absorbed their material. This he saw and allowed to continue; it needed no help from him.

He returned to his hall with the shape of the land mapped in his mind. There was much work yet to be done and no need for hurry. One day he would see his goals accomplished; and then he would devise new goals.

 

The child trapped under the earth heard voices calling to him. But he did not understand.

He spoke the language of the people who had taken him. They laughed at him when he spoke it, though it sounded good in his head and felt right in his mouth. He had never known another language. He thought another one existed, because there was a man he sometimes saw who whispered in it to himself. But he did not know what it was, and he was not often allowed to see the man.

The people who had taken him set him tasks that confused him. They fed him, when they remembered. The rest of the time he was hungry. It hurt to be hungry, and it went on and on until someone brought him food. From time to time one of the people gave him a treat or spoke to him with a kind of rough warmth. They had powers he did not understand, and when they were bored they used the powers to hurt him. The rest of the time they ignored him.

He was afraid all the time.

At first he thought the voices that called to him were other people who wanted to help him, but when they did not help he gave up thinking that. Next he thought the voices were children who wanted to play. When he thought this there was an answer, a push in a place that was between him and everything else. The voices wanted to play, but he was too stupid to understand them.

The people told him very often that he was stupid. They laughed when they said it.

He did not want to be stupid. He turned all his will to listening to the voices and understanding them. They were many. Quiet voices, thin as wisps of wool. Loud voices, hard and cold as stones. Voices that sang, and voices that laughed, and booming voices like the echoes of many rushing feet. He listened until meaning came to him.

They wanted him to open his mind to them. Then he would understand. Then he could play with them. The air was full of their beautiful promises. They were waiting for him.

But he had already learned not to believe in promises. He took a piece of his mind and put it apart, closed off from the rest. Into this piece he put all of the things that were him. If the voices lied, he might be safe this way.

Then he opened his mind.

All that he was flowed out into the place between him and everything else. It was a red and angry place, a blue and sad place, a place of sharp edges and misty borders, a place that was old, old, old, so old that it had no use for time, so old that it became new. It was a white place. It was a black place. It burned, and its flames were ice. It flowed on and on like all the water in all the worlds, dark water with a muddy bottom down too deep to reach, and the flood was all there was or had ever been.

But there was one small bit of something else. A pebble, caught in the flood. It was the place he had put apart in his mind, and the child went back into it and looked out of his own eyes. His world was changed. Sparks bloomed under his skin. Blood sang in his ears. He laughed with a mouth he remembered was his. He clapped his hands.

Then he spoke to the voices, for he could understand them now and make them hear him. The people who had taken him lived in the place that was between. They could never leave it. Their voices were part of that place, which was made up of all the voices talking together. The powers the people had came from speaking in chorus with the voices. But he could speak to the voices alone, and he could do it without spilling outside of himself forever.

He spoke to the voices, each one of which he could hear clearly now, when he listened.

He spoke to the voice that was green and sharp and happy. A deep carpet of grass grew up on the floor of his cell.

He spoke to the voice that was red and smooth and waiting. A spider came to spin her web up in a corner of the low ceiling.

He spoke to the voice that was distance and sadness and salt and many other things he had no names for. A wind came up around him and stung his nose with its sharp smell. His eyes watered.

When the wind had passed he felt lonely and proud.

He was not stupid. He had spoken to the voices.

The next time one of the people came to hurt him, he was afraid. But he spoke to a voice that screamed, a voice that was splinters in the skin and the taste of bitter roots. And the person who had come to hurt him choked, and he held his throat, and a huge black bird came out of his mouth. And then another. And another. The person fell.

The child laughed again. Now that he could speak to the voices, he would never be hurt. He would never be hungry. No one would laugh at him or say that he was stupid. No one would ignore him. All the people would want to play with him instead of setting him tasks. And now that he could speak to the voices, he would never be afraid again.

 

(Later – much, much later – the child became a king who had played with fairies until he knew all their tricks, who found it useful sometimes to be ignored, who learned to bear laughter when wisdom decreed it, and who learned compassion in the end and wished to share with all his people the fearlessness of magic. He made a spell that would accomplish it, but in order for the spell to succeed he would have to leave England – _his_ England – behind. It hurt him – and he chose to do it.)

 

(In another place and time, another child learned. He learned the language of the people he had been brought among, and he learned many other things besides, quickly and hungrily. He learned how to behave himself, and how to ask questions so they would be answered. He did not understand why his teachers were amazed at his cleverness. He did not understand why they sometimes laughed at him. There were many things he did not yet understand, but he would keep learning, and one day they would come clear to him.)


End file.
